The deal, as reported here by Ken Rosenthal, is Cliff Lee and OF Ben Francisco for Jason Knapp, Jason Donald, Carlos Carrasco and Lou Marson.

For Indians fans who find my site via google, here are some links for you to find info on the prospects you’re getting.

Carlos Carrasco
Jason Knapp
Jason Donald
Lou Marson

You can also find weekly updates on these guys by checking the Lehigh Valley (AAA) reports here. Check below the fold for my take on this deal

First, what the Phillies are getting. Cliff Lee, the 2008 Cy Young winner, bounced back from a rough patch in 2007. Always a good prospect, he has excellent control and is very durable. He’s incredibly consistent from start to start and is a very reliable number #1B guy to slot in with Cole Hamels. He makes only $5.75M this year, and has a team option worth $9M next year which will almost certainly be exercised. He’s 30, turns 31 next month, and is in the prime of his career. Is he Roy Halladay? Not quite, but he’s really not far off. They’re both under control in 2010, and Lee is much cheaper.

Ben Francisco addresses the need for a legit RH bat on the bench. He’s only 27, and hasn’t really emerged as the starting OF he was projected to be, but he still hits lefties well (.845 OPS this year, .810 for his career), and he’s still got some room to grow. Francisco has only 920 PA’s in the majors, and he’s not going to get a chance to play every day here, but he has some potential. Francisco will have less than 3 years of service time after this season and won’t be a Super 2, so he’ll be very cheap.

Now, onto what the Phillies gave up.

In my preseason Top 30, I had them ranked as follows; Carrasco (#1), Marson (#2), Donald (#4), and Knapp (#14). These rankings have obviously changed. The Phillies Top 3 right now is Drabek, Brown and Taylor in some order, depending on your preference, and Knapp may or may not have moved ahead of Carrasco. So, looking at this from just a really broad level, the Phillies did not trade any of their top 3 prospects, but they did give up 4 guys who still figured to be in the Top 8 or 10. For those who just found the site and aren’t familiar with the system, here’s a very brief synopsis before you dig into those links above

Carlos Carrasco, RHP – Has been on the Phillies prospect lists seemingly forever, but is still only 22. Has had mixed results at AAA this year, has a good arm, above average fastball, but his secondary pitches are still lacking polish. Throws a changeup with lots of late fade and a 12-6 curveball, but has recently started working on a slider. Biggest knock on him is his mental approach on the mound.

Jason Donald, SS/3B – Had a big season last year in AA, 15 HR power or so, but a line drive swing with lots of doubles, and showed the ability to work the count and take a walk. His range is fringy at best at SS, could maybe play 2B, but had spent some time at 3B because of a need in Philly and being blocked by Rollins and Utley up the middle.

Lou Marson, C – Young catcher, had a big breakthrough offensively in AA last year. Has maybe the best plate discipline in the system, draws tons of walks despite not having much power. Looks like an 8-10 HR a year guy but a line drive swing produces lots of doubles.

Jason Knapp, RHP – Made as big a jump as anyone in the system this year. Huge arm, already sits in the 93-94 range, can hit 97, and could add even more velocity in the future. Very projectable frame, secondary pitches need work, which is the case for most 18 year olds in full season ball. He’s on the DL with “shoulder fatigue”, but consensus seems to be just a precaution to keep some innings off his arm at a young age.

So, now you know who is involved. My thoughts? This is a clear win for the Phillies. They pick up a top of the rotation starter signed to a very affordable deal both this year and next, and also pick up the RH bat for the bench they’d been searching for. They were able to protect their three best prospects in the deal as well. This type of trade is the reason that you don’t trade guys like Jason Donald for middle relievers, because if you accumulate enough 2nd tier prospects, you can package those guys together for a bigger deal. The Phillies did lose 4 good prospects, 4 guys with a chance to be big league regulars, but they added a Cy Young winner to their pitching staff, plus an OF under club control for 4 more years. This trade really couldn’t have been drawn up any better from the Phillies side.

This trade is a big big win for Ruben Amaro. You have to give him credit for not blinking when JP Ricciardi postured over Halladay. I’m excited.

Update: Jim Callis said it perfectly in his chat

What makes Drabek worth not getting Halladay?

Jim Callis (2:37 PM) Drabek’s fastball and curveball give him the potential to be a frontline starter. But it’s not like it was a done deal if they included Drabek. Look at it as the Phillies had an option of a) Lee, Drabek, Happ, Brown/Taylor or b) Halladay, Carrasco, Marson, Donald. I’d do just what the Phillies did.

Martinez threw about 50 pitches in the bullpen under the supervision of Lehigh Valley pitching coach Rod Nichols.  He worked on a couple mechanical issues and seemed to throw the ball well in the session which lasted about 25 minutes. 

A Blue Jays scout is at Coca Cola Park tonight.

Now that I’ve recommended you these books (I don’t receive any financial benefit, that’s not why I’m recommending them), lets dig in. Today at Baseball Prospectus, Jay Jaffe talked about the defensive spectrum again, and the site also published a Q/A with John Dewan. If you’re completely new to the concept of the defensive spectrum, I’m going to give a very brief overview, which you can also find here. The spectrum basically looks like this;

1B—LF—RF—3B—CF—2B—SS—C

This of course moves from easiest (1B) to hardest (C) and the dropoff between 3B and CF as well as SS and C are largely the two biggest jumps in the spectrum. Nate Silver at BP came up with a very interesting diagram that shows the logical movement among players along the spectrum. For the full article, check here.

The interesting part of this diagram is in the thickness of the arrows, the thicker the arrow, the more likely the path.

Back to the John Dewan Q/A from today. This, I think, is an interesting point he made;

DL: Can you give a good example? (of an interesting fact that has come from this in depth defensive analysis….added by me for clarity)

JD: I’ll give you an example which came out in my book: When we did our analysis of defense by team, we took our various metrics and broke them into Defensive Runs Saved. What we found is that the best defensive team in baseball last year was the World Champion Philadelphia Phillies—their defense saved 78 runs over the course of the year compared to the average team in baseball. The worst team in baseball was the Kansas City Royals, who allowed 48 more runs than the average team. If you put those two together, you get about 130 runs difference between the best and worst defensive teams in baseball. If you look at that same analysis on hitting, you’ll see that the Rangers scored about 900 runs, the Padres about 640, so the difference is about 260 runs. That is exactly twice what the defensive impact was, which is almost like saying that defense is exactly half as important as offense, which no one would ever give that kind of credit to. And I’m not sure I believe it entirely myself, but it is one analysis. There are other analyses to do, but I think that what we’re getting to is realizing the magnitude of the importance of defense. We’re starting to move in that direction, and it’s not just me. There are all kinds of people doing defensive analysis, whether it’s David Pinto with his Probabilistic Model, or if it’s Mitchel Lichtman with UZR, or the folks at Baseball Prospectus who are doing some new stuff this year. There are also the guys at The Hardball Times. So a lot of people are doing work on defense, and I think it is enlightening everybody in the field.

This isn’t an entirely new concept, Bill James has long held the theory that 10 runs is equal to roughly 1 win. So if you contribute 20 runs more than average on offense, and 10 runs more than average on defense, you’d contribute 30 runs more than average, or 3 wins more than an “average” player. Conversely, if you contribute 20 runs above average on offense, but 10 runs below average on defense, you’d only be contributing 10 runs above the average player, or 1 win. Simple enough, not 100% scientific, but its backed up by lots of research. Dewan’s findings here confirm this, to a degree. I do think he overstates his findings though, as I don’t think you can just say run scoring is 50% more important than run prevention. Run scoring is more predictive, but run prevention it would seem has long been underrated. The notion that you could just put a butcher in the field anywhere because of his bat is still true to a degree, but when you’re trying to determine value, where to spend free agent money, where to move players, and which players to target, the answer isn’t quite as simple as it once seemed. I’m planning on looking at this in a bit more detail later, and I’ll touch on it again at the end of this piece.

Now that you have the back story, here’s what I wanted to look at. I want to first look at what is required for each position (in brief) and then how it relates to our current prospects in question.

1B – The “easiest” position on the diamond. The biggest “need” here is an accurate arm. 1B have to cover the bag on every play, so putting stone statues at 1B will work, but it will limit the player’s range (ie, how close he can move toward the 2B hole to cut off groundballs), but the toughest play a 1B will have to make is the throw to 2B on a 3-6-3 double play. Ryan Howard obviously has issues with this play. Scooping balls in the dirt is a definite skill, but one that I don’t really know can be measured. 1B defense is underrated, because a 1B who has great hand/eye coordination defensively (as well as a big frame) can save his infielders a boatload of errors during the course of a 162 game season.

LF/RF – The outfield corners require more speed than 1B, and what separates them on the spectrum is the throw from RF to 3B, which requires more arm strength. The LF isn’t throwing the ball to 1B, so that isn’t an issue. Guys with noodle arms often end up in LF. Your home ball park also has a lot to do with these two positions. In a small park like Citizens Bank Park, there should be less emphasis on speed in the outfield corners because of the shallow alleys. In a place like PETCO with huge power alleys, playing a guy without much speed could mean death to your pitchers or your centerfielder.

3B – This one is a tough position to gauge. The position is predicated largely on reactions (its not called the hot corner because of temperature), which would indicate a need for some athleticism. I think 3B is a position you can stick a number of different players. Last year, Adrian Beltre ranked atop the leaderboard at 3B with a +32, while the 10th ranked 3B (Chipper Jones), finished at +9, a difference of 23 runs or a bit more than 2 wins. More than anything, it seems that the position requires athleticism and a modestly strong arm.

CF – The toughest OF position by far, it requires both speed (two gaps to cover) a strong arm (but not as strong as RF) and athleticism/the ability to read balls off the bat hit directly at you, one of the toughest parts of fielding in general. To me, the gap between 3B and CF is vast. Ryan Zimmerman is a good defender at 3B, but could you see him playing CF in Washington? Scott Rolen was a gold glove defender here at 3B, but could you have imagined him playing centerfield?

2B/SS – The two up the middle positions are obviously premium spots, which makes the Phillies luxury of having two of the best in the game all that more impressive. Shortstop requires more because of the longer throw, especially the throw from the 5.5 hole, but it also requires tremendous athleticism to turn double plays, which may be the most under the radar aspect of the position. Just ask Skip Schumaker, who is attempting to move from the outfield to 2B.

C – The most demanding position on the diamond, and one of the toughest spots to evaluate. Catchers require not only a specific set of skills (blocking balls on the dirt, fast lateral movement), but they also require a strong, accurate arm, as well as the proper body type to be able to handle the rigors of catching 140+ games a season. If you are too tall, the constant squatting destroys your knees. If you’re too short or thin, the grind of the position wears you down too fast. If your arm is strong but not accurate, runners will exploit you, and if your arm is accurate but not strong, any hesitation by your pitcher means you have no chance. Learning the nuances of the position also take a long time, and it generally slows down a player’s path to the majors. Often times hitting skills are the last to develop because so much time is spent on learning the fundamentals of receiving, blocking balls in the dirt, calling a game and neutralizing the running game. Consequently, the type of hitter who might profile at catcher could be a .275/.345/.400 guy, not bad for a catcher, but below average at lots of other positions, and if you are moving off of the position, chances are your body type is going to limit you to an outfield corner or 1B, where the offensive standards are much higher.

So that brings us to two of our current guys;

Anthony Hewitt, SS > 3B. Hewitt was drafted as a shortstop and immediately moved to 3B. I don’t really think this is the best deployment of his skills. He’s a legitimate 5 tool player and has more than enough speed and a cannon for an arm. Why not move him to CF? As I showed above, CF is higher on the defensive spectrum than 3B. Its easy to look at our current 3B situation and say “but we need a 3B of the future!”, and while that might be true, Hewitt won’t be an answer for at least 4-5 years, and in 4-5 years, maybe we’ll have acquired a cornerstone 3B and then we won’t have the same pressing need we have today. 3B is a position that will take adjusting to, but the move from SS to 3B is very common, as seen in Nate Silver’s diagram. To me, its so easy to compare Hewitt to BJ Upton. Upton had much more baseball skill when he was drafted, but both are freakish athletes. Upton struggled first at SS, then at 2B, as he was way too mechanical in the field. The Rays moved him to CF to allow him to think less on defense and just react. He’s still new to the position and has kind of learned on the job. The Phillies have a chance to move Hewitt there now, which might allow him to think less about defense and more about learning how to identify a breaking ball.

Jason Donald, SS > 3B. A similar debate is going on right now with Jason Donald, though CF doesn’t figure into his long term plans. Most scouts indicate Donald is not a starting shortstop for a top tier big league team, but could be an average SS for a second tier club. The logical step is moving him to 2B, but obviously that position is blocked as well. And while I don’t have much research on this, I wonder what kind of adjustment period is needed for a SS moving to 2B. You’re moving to the other side of the diamond, the ball is coming at you from a completely different angle, and your turning of the double play is completely backwards (and tougher) than it is at SS. His arm is more than good enough, but I suspect his range will be about the same at 2B as it is at SS. Moving him to 3B reduces some of the mechanics from the game, as its more a reaction position, and he certainly seems to have solid baseball instincts. If the Philles plan is to make him the starting 3B in 2010, then this switch is very much justified. If the plan is to use him as a utility man, then he should split time in AAA between all 3 infield positions, as he’ll need to remain sharp at SS and 2B. If the plan is to trade him because they feel he can’t produce enough at 3B (which is a really shortsighted view), then they need to keep him at SS, which is still much higher on the defensive spectrum.

As a followup to this piece, I’m working on something else with regard to batting runs and fielding runs. Its going to take some time to compile, so I’ll post it later next week, but I figured this post would be a good starting point.